Swing and a miss

Last Saturday was my first time out hunting in half a decade or so.  It was great to be out at 5 in the morning.  Because shooting light wasn't until 6 something, I didn't get out into the woods until closer to 7.  Walked all morning on a piece of public land that I really had no knowledge of.  I should have scouted it earlier, I just never got around to it.

At about 7:45AM I was resting in a thicket.  I had just put my bag back on and picked up my bow, when I heard a lot of noise moving from my right to my left, probably 20 yards in front of me.  With all the brush I couldn't see anything.  Then to my right I saw what I'm pretty sure was a doe, as it circled back around.  Not 30 seconds later I saw the white flag as it moved away.  My thought is that I stumbled upon their normal morning trail and as they approached they caught a whiff of me.  I'm pretty sure there was no way I would've snuck up on them.

It was a good morning and I now know that there are definitely deer out there.  I'm going to hunt another property this weekend, but I hope to be back out on that public land in another week.  Hopefully I haven't completely run them off.  The next block of woods over is being logged, so I'm banking on them being used to humans and the smell.  Better luck next time.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for next weekend!

Counting down the days

It is almost September and hunting season is looming large.  In light of this, practicing is pretty much an every day occurrence.  If it's 4 arrows or 40, it helps.  As I continue my strength training, I am also making sure to train my bow technique.  As with strength training though, you need a rest day every now and then.

Today was a 3 set day of arrows and everything looked great, from 15 yards to 30 yards.  The last set of the day I posted, because it was my first set where all 4 are just about within an inch of each other.  Usually I'll get 3 together and one outlier.  Today marks a good day in my progress.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned.  Also check out the photos page for my camo gear.  Everything came in last week and I finally got some good pictures of it (minus the boots).

Troubleshooting

When I got home today, I immediately began practicing.  Today was a day full of problems though.  To start off, I had to douse myself in bug spray several times and even still I'm not sure I escaped free of new bites.  I then starting shooting and everything was going well, even put all 4 arrows touching in a row (shafts not just the fletching).  But I noticed that the sling was a little loose, so I went in and tightened it.  I also messed with the release because it didn't feel quite right, but it was apparently still not right because I have some blisters on my lower thumb.  Then I noticed some black stuff on my fletching and it was a little wavy as well.  Lo and behold, my drop away rest hadn't dropped!  Still not positive why this was happening, but I assumed I wasn't pulling all the way to the wall or I was letting the string forward just a little before pulling the trigger.  So I tried to make sure I was releasing from the full draw and that seemed to clear up the problem, but it was still occurring sporadically.  That took off a lot of the felt that was on the rest and it had also messed up those 4 arrows' fletching a bit, so I now have only 1 arrow that has good vanes on it since I ripped the one off on Sunday (not intentionally).  To top things off it started to rain a bit, but I figured "Hey it's going to rain when I hunt, so why not practice in it?"  Well that's great and all, but if you have the same thinking as I do just be aware that your arrows are going to go through your foam layer target (if that's indeed what you are using).  With water on the shafts, the friction of the shafts against the layers of foam comes down a bit, so the arrows will either get stuck with the fletching in the target, or they will punch right through.  Needless to say you will strain the fletching.  The last thing I noticed today was that the top cam (an idler wheel as it's a single cam bow) was off at an angle with the string and the top limb was slightly torqued.  This is because of the cable guard that pulls the cables out of the way of the arrow.  I'm not sure how this is corrected or how big of an issue it is, but it definitely makes me nervous.

Overall today was a learning experience and I'm sure one of the many more hump days that I will have on my way to becoming an expert with my equipment.  And to help with all of the issues I encountered today, I'm going to call the pro-shop tomorrow and discuss what they think I could do to rectify the problems.  I was asked if I was discouraged by all of the drawbacks that I had today and I replied that while I was frustrated, it was not discouraging.  Learning a new sport takes practice, even for someone as myself who is naturally talented at picking up new things quickly.  It will take practice to actually acquire the full skill necessary to take down my first deer.  And that practice is well worth it in my mind.  Besides I still had fun shooting today.  I probably had over 20 shots maybe even over 30 today and I don't even feel it.  Already my work is paying off and I can pull the bow back every time without a struggle.  I had my best draw today too, as I pulled it back I slowed down as I came to the let off and just settled right down to the full draw without a single jerk.  So it wasn't all bad today (as I scratch about a half-dozen more mosquito bites).

Thanks for reading.

It's like riding a bike...

When your parents taught you to ride a bike, hopefully it was a good experience.  Honestly, I don't remember learning to ride my first bike.  But it is true that no matter how long I go without riding a bike, getting back on one is easy.  You never forget how, hence the phrase.  But is it because riding a bike is easy?

The reason you never forget how to ride a bike is because you (usually) went through a long process to learn the balance and motions for riding a bike (except those of you freaks of nature out there).  The many repetitions that you went through, trained the motions and balance into your muscle memory.  I read somewhere (for those of you skeptics) that it takes some ridiculous number [5000] of repetitions to commit a certain motion to muscle memory.  That's where the phrase "practice makes perfect" springs from.  Now personally I like the phrase "perfect practice makes perfect" a little better because you can develop bad habits very quickly, but I digress.

So 5000 repetitions eh?  That's a lot.  How many things do you think you have done, or want to do 5000 times?

I just got my first compound hunting bow yesterday and let me tell you, it was quite the experience.  I used to shoot kids bows and small compound bows back when I was in Cub Scouts and in Boy Scouts.  My sister even got a compound bow when she was younger and we all got to use it as kids.  But that was a long time ago.  I hadn't shot a bow in years (probably over a decade), let alone drawn back a full size compound bow.  Now I consider myself a pretty fit individual.  Definitely not a bulky, strong he-man, but I grew up a farmer and I play hockey so I've got a little meat on my bones.  But this bow kicked my butt.  I shot 10 or 12 arrows in total and the placement wasn't bad for an amateur, but it's going to be a while before I'm shooting 50 in a row, let alone 2 inch groups at 20 yards.

Hunting is a great pastime.  It puts you out in nature and it is a great way to practice conservation.  I'm a hunter and I've gone hunting for deer, squirrels, woodchucks, and the like with shotguns and rifles.  Bow hunting was always another genre I wanted to get involved in for various reasons: you have to get closer to the animal, it doesn't disrupt all of nature with its noise, there is a greater challenge from the variable of the bow, and let's be honest it's badass.  Don't get me wrong, hunting is hard no matter how you skin it (get it?).  It's called hunting, not killing.  This blog will follow my journey into this newest aspect of hunting which I hope will be a large part of the rest of my life.

Thanks for joining me.